Sacrifice of a Summer

Remembering that God brought Kayla and I here, I can hold onto the belief that God has a reason for us to be at Paradise.

In James 4, it says “Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.”

Weep. Mourn. Let your laughter be turned to mourning. Joy, to gloom. We live in a culture that wants to laugh. Our culture says we should laugh and take things easy. Often, we over indulge in laughter and happiness. If we live life too comfortably, we forget how painful it is to be uncomfortable. If we live life too comfortably, we forget how great it is to be comforted. 

It’s almost backwards, isn’t it? We spend our lives pursuing comfort and happiness but, when we sacrifice what we do have, we are comforted. 

In Luke 9 it says, “Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.”

Spending the past 3 summers in National Parks, I've done a fair amount of hiking. One thing I have learned is that the longer you spend on one hike, the more you will appreciate the view it gives. You can appreciate the view from the side of the road, but I guarantee you will appreciate the view more if you hike hike five hours to see it. So it is with sacrifice. The more you give of yourself and the more you sacrifice, the more joy you will have. 

The devil wants you to think this is backwards. He’s got most people thinking that it is. My friend and fellow ministry volunteer Josh said this, "When Jesus speaks, it is backwards to our human thinking but, once we hear it, we find it undeniably true." Many of the things Jesus says do sound backwards. Repay evil with good? Love your enemies? To save your life, you must lose it? It sounds backwards until you live it out.

Our ways are not to be the ways of this world. We should seem backwards to those around us.

James 4:10 ends with this: “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.” 

Here is more backward logic: In order to be lifted up, we must fall to our knees and humble ourselves. We must go down in order to come up. The message translation puts it like this: “The fun and games are over. Get serious, really serious. Get down on your knees before the master; it’s the only way you’ll get on your feet.”

I want you to imagine yourself as the person Jesus is warning in Luke 6. The woes are to you and me.

“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people exclude you and insult you, because of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets. But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.”

Compared to rest of the world, middle class Americans are rich. That means, we have already received our comfort and consolation. Middle class Americans are never with accessible food. We are full and soon we shall be hungry. Middle class American have a good life. We laugh now, but we shall mourn in heaven when we realize the lives of others we could have touched. We will weep when we think about how selfishly we spent our resources when we could have helped bring others to Jesus. Middle class Americans work hard. We are upstanding citizens. Our neighbors speak highly of us. Yet, we are false prophets when we live the lie of the American Dream.

This summer, responsibilities for this ministry seem to be very demanding and require a larger sacrifice from me than what I am used to. I often found myself wanting to forsake my responsibilities and my perceived image as a Christian in order to stay up late hanging out, drinking, or doing other things besides preparing for the ministry. I could have lied to myself, saying I was building positive relationships in the process, but I felt God was calling me to be careful not to mislead others or discredit the ministry (2 Cor. 6:3). 

Luke 14:33 says, “So, whoever of you that doesn’t forsake all that he has, he cannot be my disciple."

We need to forsake everything that we have. We need to forsake buying that new vehicle. We need to forsake buying that next thing for ourselves. We came into this world with no possessions and we are leaving with no possessions. We need to forsake our hopes and dreams of a comfortable life. Yes, we even need to forsake our American pursuit of happiness.

Sometimes it is helpful to hear familiar ideas put into different words. The Message paraphrase of Jesus' blessings and woes is called Give Away Your Life.

"You're blessed when you've lost it all.
God's kingdom is there for the finding.
You're blessed when you're ravenously hungry.
Then you're ready for the Messianic meal.
You're blessed when the tears flow freely.

Joy comes with the morning."

"But it's trouble ahead if you think you have it made.
What you have is all you'll ever get.
And it's trouble ahead if you're satisfied with yourself.
Your self will not satisfy you for long.
And it's trouble ahead if you think life's all fun and games.
There's suffering to be met, and you're going to meet it."

When working for Christ, sometimes the hard work and sacrifice makes me hungry, sometimes it makes me cry, sometimes it makes my coworkers exclude me, BUT, I am doing it for Christ and I know that he will satisfy me, he will make me laugh, and he will never forsake me. I am sacrificing my time and myself this summer because I know it is not about me; it is not about whether I have fun or not, it is about whether others meet Christ through me. For that, I try to sacrifice every moment I can. Moment by moment, I am sacrificing my summer.